Mounting apparatus of the type commonly utilized on satellite dish antennas often do not have any means of accommodating the tiltable mechanism for aiming the antenna at a selected satellite to a particular geographical location. Those which do utilize adjustable mounting brackets carried by means such as a Heim ball joint on one end, which twists the mounting bracket in such a way that the distortion is magnified as the tilting of the dish supporting frame in respect to a neutral position becomes more pronounced.
Another problem occurs in the installation of such inexpensive supports, as for home use, resulting from the fact that parabolic dish antennas have varying sizes and curvatures. In order to accommodate the various dish configurations, the fixed mounting brackets must be twisted and unless the resulting disformation of the bracket is of substantially the required magnitude, the leg, which is secured to the antenna, is not substantially tangential thererto. Unless the bracket is square or tangential, stresses are induced into the dish antenna, when the fastening means between the bracket and the dish is secured, which distort the curvature resulting in poor reception of the signal.
The following U.S. Letters Patent, in addition to the prior art constructions described above, are representative of the prior art: U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,258,186, 3,553,732, 3,714,660, 3,999,184, 3,940,771, 4,104,640, 4,232,319, 4,209,789 and 4,232,320.
Accordingly, it is an important part of this invention to provide a simplified and inexpensive mounting structure for a dish antenna which provides a readily adjustable means for accommodating the tiltable frame to a motion which conforms to the requirements of geographical location.
Another important object of the invention is to provide a means for mounting the dish antenna upon the tiltable frame in such a way that the bracket may be adjusted in planes at right angles to each other as well as vertically in such a way as to provide simnplified means for securing the dish antennas without placing substantial stresses thereon as to distort the antenna interferring with the reception of the signal.
Another advantage of the invention resides in the provision of an inexpensive antenna mounting apparatus having separate bracket mountings which may be broken down for convenient packaging and shipping and which may be readily assembled and installed.